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The Ramp, the Judgment and the Earthquake

“When half dressed women with Muslim names parade in an enticing gait up and down the ramp, flaunting everything they’ve got and when Muslim men ogle at them defying anything and everything their Creator has to say about this bare-all, dare-all “mega” excitement and that too on Friday, then wait for an earthquake of unprecedented proportions.”

(Thoughts of a Muslim Sister about a Fashion show starting tomorrow)

Though God didn’t send any earthquake, but I wondered how could one just be so judgmental! No believing Muslim can deny that it is Allah (SWT) who causes all natural occurrences. But one fails to understand why God would send earthquakes to an entire country or a city only because a small number of women (crudely dressed) are walking down the ramp while a crowd, including men, is looking at them. And who are we to judge God’s behavior? God does as He wants. And it’s wrong to assess or predict His behavior according to human ideas of what made sense. To me God should send tremor when an innocent girl is raped, when an innocent girl is sold in marriage to an elderly man, when an innocent girl is killed in the name of honor. The same way, to someone else acts like telling lies, cheating, gambling, and consuming alcohol should attract God’s wrath. But these are all our own ideas of justice as God has not listed down things doing which may attract His fury of what kind.

But then again, who are we to judge others to the extent that we even attribute coming of natural catastrophe to their obvious acts of ‘immodesty’? Do we forget that the very trait to judge others is quite opposite of what Islam teaches us to be? We only see one aspect of these models’ lives, that is catwalking, but we have no idea what good deeds they might be doing in their respective lives. Apparently they are doing something unislamic, but only Allah knows what’s outside and inside their hearts, He knows their good deeds might just be more than bad deeds to attract His forgiveness. Having negative opinions of others are baseless assumptions which often lead to backbiting, and backbiting can be in unspoken form too. Needless to say that Allah (swt) has equated backbiting to eating one’s dead brother’s flesh in Quran.

“O you who believe! Avoid much suspicion, indeed some suspicions are sins. And spy not neither backbite one another. Would one of you like to eat the flesh of his dead brother? You would hate it (so hate backbiting). And fear Allah, verily, Allah is the one who accepts repentance, Most Merciful.” (Qur’an 49: 12)

Before we judge anyone, Muslims or not, we should look at ourselves first. I’m sure we can all find a number of things to improve upon. On the Day of Judgment we will be judged by our Creator, and each person will be responsible only for her or his own faith and actions. So we have no right to judge people. Let’s leave judgment only to Allah (swt).

“Who receives guidance, receives it for his own benefit; who goes astray does so to his own loss. No bearer of burdens can bear the burden of another, nor would We punish until We had sent a messenger to give warning”. (Qur’an 17:15)

May Allah forgive us for any judgments we have made on others, and help us not judge others in times to come. [Ameen]

Judging here applies to judging one’s faith (eeman) etc which is between God and human being. Judging someone for a crime like theft, murder etc is another thing.

Whereas, good and evil are already decided by God. And if one is really concerned about other’s immodesty then they should reach out to them and guide them gently instead of using harsh words and saying that they are going to hell.

Your aright, we should never judge people just by their appearance. But we are allowed to judge according to the laws if Allah (swt) and there is no doubt that a woman modeling in small clothes is totally haram and degrading! I feel so sorry for those women who are being judged by all the people at the catwalk “she’s too skinny, too far, too tall, to short, she walks funny” and so on.
But no matter how a Muslim woman dresses we should never suspect her to be a bad person or Muslim!

Correct! We Can never do that! As a hadith says: a person could be a arms length from jannah and then comit kufr and end up in jahannam, and a person could be an arms length from jahannam and then make repentance and enter Jannah. We never know if jannah or jahannam is Qadr for us.